WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials are cautiously optimistic that an overall decline in reported sexual assaults among active-duty service members and the military academies suggests leaders are finally getting a handle on a persistent problem.
“The department’s leadership has made this a top priority and is deeply committed to this work, and that work is beginning to bend the curve,” Beth Foster, executive director of the Pentagon Office of Force Resiliency, said Thursday.
But it’s a long and difficult road to sustaining progress, especially in the Army, Navy and Air Force academies, where officials say hazing and other toxic behavior have become the norm.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called the latest report encouraging, but added that “we must redouble our efforts to end sexual assault and sexual harassment.”
Here are some takeaways from the latest assessment of sexual assault in the US military:
During the fiscal year ending September 30, there were 8,515 sexual assaults involving members of the U.S. military, down from 8,942 in 2022. Despite the decline, the 8,515 are the third-highest number of reported assaults since the Department of Defense started collecting data. the data.
A confidential survey, conducted every two years and accompanying the report, found a 19% drop in the number of soldiers who said they had experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact.
According to the online survey, more than 29,000 active duty service members said they had had unwanted sexual contact in the past year, compared to nearly 36,000 in the 2021 survey. The decline is the first in eight years.
All military services experienced a decline.
The number of reported sexual assaults in the Army dropped from 3,718 in 2022 to 3,507 last year, while the Navy went from 2,052 to 1,942 and the Air Force from 1,928 to 1,838. The Marine Corps had the smallest decline, going from 1,244 to 1,228.
The total of 8,515 included 541 military personnel who reported an attack that occurred before joining the military, and 612 civilians who said they had been attacked by a member of the military.
Service members filed 2,980 complaints of sexual harassment in the past fiscal year, of which 1,372 were substantiated. This is a decrease compared to the 3,201 complaints last year, of which 1,053 were well-founded.
Services saw small declines across the board.
However, the research revealed a much more extensive problem, which underlines how little it is actually reported.
One in four women in the military and nearly 6% of men said in the survey that they had experienced sexual harassment during the year. Because the U.S. military is roughly 80% male, this means that actually more men – 60,330 – than women – 55,464 – said they were harassed.
The U.S. military academies also saw fewer reported sexual assaults in the school year that ended last spring than the year before, but it marks just a small start to what military leaders have said should be a major overhaul of leadership at the schools.
Overall, the number of reported assaults involving students decreased from 170 in 2022 to 137 in the 2023 school year. Of the 137, 13 reports were filed by active-duty military personnel about a previous incident.
There were declines at all three academies: the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland went from 63 in the 2022 school year to 49 last year; the Air Force Academy in Colorado went from 57 to 45, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York went from 50 to 43.
However, service commanders are still working to address the dramatic 18% spike in 2022 and a study that found an increase in all types of unwanted sexual contact – from touching to rape – in all schools. Alcohol was cited as a key factor.
The Department of Defense’s Family Advocacy Program handles incidents related to domestic violence. According to the report, there were 484 adult victims of domestic violence-related sexual violence, up from 467 in 2022. In 2023, almost all victims were female victims, and only 3% were male.
In 2023, 229 victims of child sexual abuse were reported, down from the previous year’s total of 269. Here too, the vast majority were women and 14% men.
According to the report, there were 197 alleged perpetrators in 2023, and of those 103 were parents of service members, 27 were civilian parents and the rest were other caregivers, either in the family or not.
A major effort within the department is focused on building a larger, more professional workforce for sexual assault response and prevention.
The services have used more than $1 billion in infusions in the past two budgets to improve programs and hire up to 2,500 staff. The new personnel will undergo additional training and be considered more of a full-time workforce that will be deployed to military installations around the world.
The recruitment process was a bit stuck in the initial phase and is slightly behind schedule. More than 1,000 have been hired so far. But officials said Thursday that the issues are being resolved and that they expect to reach the goal of hiring all 2,500 employees by the end of fiscal year 2028.